Читать книгу Mind-Body Health and Healing - Andrew Goliszek - Страница 11
Оглавление“Mind over matter” is not simply a catchphrase. It is a truth based on what we know to be fact: that the brain, given the right set of directions, the right environment, and the proper stimuli, will always choose healing over disease.
The ability to fend off illness and disease depends on several factors, some of which are beyond your control, but others of which are not. The type of stressor you’ve been exposed to, such as a pathogen, an injury, or a traumatic event may be—in fact, usually is—beyond your control. But the way you react to the stressor and the general health of your immune system are things you can influence. Harnessing the power of your brain and thus enhancing your ability to boost your immune system is definitely something you can influence. Remember that at the center of it all is the brain, and as we have discussed, the brain is “command central” for the mind and the body.
Homeostasis: An Internal Balancing Act
Each of us has, in our brains, an internal engine that fine-tunes our life processes and keeps us in balance. That engine is homeostasis. For example, when our body temperature increases or decreases too much, homeostatic systems engage to get us back to normal. When our blood sugar gets out of balance, those same systems work to return it to a healthy level. In essence, we stay healthy and disease-free because our body’s engine helps keep us within a normal physiological range.
When we lose our ability to get back to that normal range, we set ourselves up for danger. Physical and emotional stress significantly decreases the effectiveness of homeostatic systems by altering biochemical reactions and flooding us with hormones that disrupt life processes. Additionally, as we get older, we don’t cope as well with sudden changes because our homeostatic mechanisms aren’t as efficient as they once were.
By definition, disease is the failure to maintain homeostasis. Disease is a state of imbalance that usually begins at the tissue level and eventually affects organs or entire organ systems. Sometimes our immune system needs a little help because it doesn’t react quickly enough. A bacterial infection, for example, may spread rapidly and overwhelm us unless antibiotics are given to keep the pathogen population down long enough for our own defenses to take over. In most cases, our natural defenses are enough to get the job done, and often we’re not even aware that we’re being attacked.
A physician friend once told me, “If there was anything in the world I would wish for my patients, it’s a healthy and responsive immune system.” As long as we have a healthy immune system, the disease process begins and ends fairly quickly. For instance, there is good evidence that cells are making mistakes all the time—including the mistakes that lead to cells becoming cancerous—but the immune system fights back. The body can recognize that a cell is a mutant and destroy it. So we may have cancer for a brief moment of time and then it’s gone. Or, we get an infection and our body gets rid of it in short order. It’s when our immune system is weakened by internal and external forces that we succumb. A breakdown in homeostasis is often exacerbated by persistent negative thoughts, and the resulting disease may be the product of the mind-body connection working against us.
One of the most important systems we have to fight disease is really three systems in one. The nervous system, controlled by the brain, regulates the other two: the endocrine and the immune systems. Together, these systems are a veritable army against toxins, pathogens, tissue trauma, and psychological stress, which by itself can cause more disease than the first three factors combined. See Figure 2.1.
Figure 2.1: The Neuro-Endocrine-Immune System
Many diseases besides genetic disorders originate with the nervous system because the brain controls the way all our other organs respond. As discussed earlier, the hypothalamus sends chemical and nerve signals to the pituitary, which in turn releases hormones that trigger chemical reactions and stimulate or inhibit the immune system. In concert, this threesome of organ systems determines how healthy we are and how quickly and effectively we respond to illness when it strikes.
All three of these systems directly affect one another, particularly during embryonic growth and development. And in adulthood the interactions that occur among them depend extensively on a network of chemicals and hormones that travel from one body part to another, sometimes for great distances.
Because the neuro-endocrine-immune system is so interrelated, disruption to one of the organ systems due to a physical challenge like tissue trauma or infection, or a mental challenge that creates stress, typically causes damage to the others. And because this damage usually begins with the brain, our goal should be to ensure that the “neuro” part of the neuro-endocrine-immune system is functioning well. If it isn’t, it’s that much harder for the body to overcome disease mechanisms.
What Are the Effects of Stress on Health?
If you are not able to change your response to the stressors that are so much a part of modern life, you may find yourself in a continual fight-or-flight reaction. Over time, being effectively stuck in fight-or-flight mode can lead to serious health consequences, including high blood pressure, digestive disorders, or diabetes.
Mind-body therapies and practices can help prevent this. But note that the relationship between stress and illness is not a simple one. There is no simple, direct connection between the number and kinds of stressors you experience, the way you react to those stressors, and how your physical health is affected. But there is a connection.
Some people misinterpret the idea of the mind-body connection and end up blaming themselves for being stressed and sick. This assumes a level of control over their health that isn’t realistic. Instead of worrying or self-blaming, do what you can to take care of yourself, including practicing stress management, but it’s important to recognize that you don’t have complete control.
How Do Mind-Body Therapies Help Reduce Stress?
Mind-body therapies help you change your response to stressors. Some of the ways they can do this include:
• Relaxation response. Many of these therapies invoke the relaxation response. As you may have experienced, the relaxation response reverses the physical effects of stress.
• Positive thinking. Mind-body therapies can also contribute to (or deliberately create) more positive thinking. Evidence shows that people who believe they are doing better actually do better than those who have the same physical condition but aren’t as positive. (Research also suggests that anxiety, hostility, depression, and other negative states affect the immune system.)
• Placebo effect. When people believe that a therapy is working, it often does have a positive effect. The placebo effect is often deliberately invoked by mind-body therapies. For example, guided imagery and clinical hypnosis can use suggestions that the patient is getting better.
• Social support is a mind-body therapy in and of itself and is also part of many other mind-body therapies. It has been shown beneficial to health in many studies. “People with supportive social networks have been shown to have better overall health . . . shorter hospital stays when they do get sick, and better resistance to infection than those whose social bonds are not strong.”3
The principles that make mind-body therapies and practices effective in improving physical health also apply to other aspects of our daily life. These therapies can improve your mental and emotional health and your overall well-being.
According to a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there is a direct link between stress and aging. This study compared the chromosomes of thirty-nine women, ages twenty to fifty, who had been caring for children with serious chronic illnesses (and who thus had high levels of stress) with woman caring for healthy children (lower stress).4
Women with the highest levels of stress had changes in their chromosomes equivalent to at least one decade of additional aging compared with women with lower stress. But it wasn’t only the years of caregiving that related to the change, it was the perception of high stress. Women who had the perception of higher stress levels such as the inability to manage time or feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work, fared the worst. To paraphrase Hans Selye, an Austrian-Canadian endocrinologist and researcher on the responses of organisms to stressors, every stressful experience leaves an indelible scar and exacts a cost—after a stressful situation the organism pays for it by becoming a little older. Given this, could mind-body practices that reduce stress also reduce aging? I’ll examine this in a later chapter.
I’ve included chapters on spirituality, prayer, meditation, and imaging because all of these can have a significant effect on our state of mind and the way we feel and think, which, in turn, can have a profound effect on how our immune system responds to illness and disease.
Typically, the main ingredients needed to trigger a disease are an invading foreign substance and a lowered resistance. The invader can be anything from a virus, fungus, parasite, or bacteria to abnormal tissue growth, resulting in a tumor or cancer. The lower the resistance, or the slower the response to the invader is, the more likely the disease will establish itself and overwhelm homeostatic mechanisms. Stress is your body’s physiological response to anything you perceive as overwhelming, unpleasant, dangerous, or threatening. In the case of the fight-or-flight response, stress contributes to our survival, enabling us to quickly escape or fight our way out of a threatening situation.
Stress can also be caused by changes we normally think of as positive, such as a job promotion, a new relationship, or the birth of a child. It is excess or ongoing stress that interferes with relationships, work, and social life. Ongoing stress saps your energy resources, causes feelings of negativity and, according to medical research, is responsible for as much as 90 percent of all illnesses and diseases—most notably hypertension, heart disease, and cancer. In addition, stress can be a contributing factor in making existing medical problems worse.
Because each of us is shaped by experiences and a unique genetic makeup, we’re all inherently different in how we respond to and deal with stress. At a Biology of Stress conference, Dr. Rachel Yehuda, a research psychologist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said, “We don’t walk into trauma the same way . . . and we don’t walk out of trauma the same way.”5 Yehuda is one of many scientists to show that reactions to stress can vary widely and that outcomes of stressful events arise from a complex interplay between genes and the environment.
Stress makes us all the more susceptible to illness and disease because the brain’s hypothalamus sends defense signals to the endocrine system, which then releases an array of hormones that not only get us ready for emergency situations but severely depress immunity as well. Even ordinary, day-to-day activities could push us over the edge, according to David Krantz, PhD of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, who found that blood flow to the heart is affected by what we’re doing and feeling each day and that serious problems can be avoided by keeping track of the simple daily stress in our lives.6 So just as in other physiological processes, the neuro-endocrine-immune system is at the very heart of the stress response—a series of chemical reactions that affect tissues and organs in ways that can wreak havoc on normal body functions.
It’s impossible to say exactly how many different negative reactions occur as a result of physical or emotional stress. What we do know, as indicated in Figure 2.2 below, is that the number is significant.
Figure 2.2: Physical Reactions During the Stress Response
In 1926, a young Hans Selye observed that hospital patients in the early stages of infectious diseases all exhibited similar symptoms, regardless of the type of disease they had. Later, while doing some physiology experiments, he noticed that three common responses occurred whenever any organism was injected with a toxic substance: (1) the adrenal glands enlarged; (2) the lymph nodes and other white-blood-cell producing organs initially swelled and then shrank; and (3) bleeding appeared in the stomach and intestines.
Selye called these three common responses the General Adaptation Syndrome and concluded that certain changes take place within the body during physical stress that disrupt homeostasis and trigger an array of diseases. No matter what type of organism he examined, from rats, dogs, pigs, and monkeys to humans, he found that chronic stress, if left untreated, induced a specific pattern that always led to infection, illness, disease, and eventually death (Figure 2.3). As shown in Hans Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome, various stress reactions occur during each stage that make us more susceptible to disease.
Figure 2.3: Hans Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome
Stage 1: Alarm Reaction: Any physical or mental trauma sets off an immediate set of reactions to combat the stress. Because the immune system is initially depressed, normal resistance levels are lowered, making us more susceptible to infection and disease. If the stress is not severe or long lasting, we bounce back and recover rapidly.
Stage 2: Resistance: Eventually, sometimes rather quickly, we adapt to stress, and there’s actually a tendency to become more resistant to illness and disease. Our immune system works overtime for us during this period, trying to keep up with the demands placed upon it. The danger here is that we become complacent and assume that we can resist the effects of stress indefinitely. Believing that we’re immune from the effects of stress, we typically fail to do anything about it.
Stage 3: Exhaustion: Because our body is not able to maintain homeostasis, we invariably develop a sudden drop in our resistance level. No one experiences exactly the same resistance and tolerance to stress, but at some point everyone’s immunity collapses and is followed by prolonged stress reactions. Life sustaining mechanisms slow down and sputter, organ systems begin to break down, and stress-fighting reserves finally succumb to what Selye called “diseases of adaptation.”
While I was a PhD student at Utah State University, my research showed a significant correlation between the emotional stress of oral exams and increased cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels. Since then other researchers have corroborated my results, showing that total cholesterol and triglycerides can fluctuate by as much as 20 percent during stress and that the bigger the perceived stress the greater the fluctuation in blood lipid levels. LDL, the so-called “bad cholesterol,” is especially affected by stress.
The General Adaptation Syndrome is thought to be the main reason why stress is such a prevelant source of health problems. By changing the way our body normally functions, stress disrupts the natural balance—homeostasis—crucial for well-being. It can also subtract years from our lives by speeding up the aging process.
Resistance is the name of the game when it comes to disease. Stress is one of the most significant factors in lowering resistance and triggering the various mechanisms involved in the disease process. By learning the relaxation and stress management techniques found in later chapters, you’ll improve your overall health as well as your odds of living a more disease-free life.
Our ancient ancestors evolved what we know as the stress response as a survival mechanism to cope with events in their environment. Similar threats rarely exist in our modern world, thankfully. However, we still respond with the same fight-or-flight stress response—to situations we perceive as threatening but may or may not actually be—that, over a lifetime, create an internal environment primed for adverse stress reactions. The longer we allow those events to dominate our thoughts and reactions, the greater the chance they will eventually cause illness and disease.
These conditioned responses increase in strength because they become ingrained into our subconscious and are then triggered by mental or environmental cues. How we perceive events, and the ways in which we react to occurrences in our daily lives, will determine how our brain is conditioned and whether or not we create patterns that contribute more to health or to disease.
One of the more remarkable characteristics of the human brain is how easily it’s conditioned. We’ve all heard about Pavlov’s famous dog experiment. Every time Pavlov fed his dog, he would ring a bell. The dog began to associate the sound of the bell with being fed, and eventually, whenever Pavlov rang the bell, the dog would immediately begin salivating. The sound of the bell conditioned the dog’s brain to trigger the physiological response of salivating. Humans are no different in that we are just as easily conditioned to sounds, sights, smells, thoughts, and events.
Since the immune system is wired to the brain by a network of blood vessels, and the brain is the major organ of conditioning, immunity and the strength of the immune response depend on two things: (1) how we perceive stimuli and (2) what we do in order to condition ourselves to boost rather than to inhibit immune reactions. Negative perceptions evoke negative reactions, which depress the immune system. The more we evoke negative reactions, the greater the conditioning is and the more such reactions become a spontaneous response (see Figure 2.4).
Figure 2.4: Stress-Induced Conditioning and Habit-Formation
The good news is that we can use fairly simple techniques to create, condition, and reinforce positive responses that help maintain a healthy immune system. There’s a lesson to be learned from all this mounting evidence. By strengthening and conditioning the mind part of the mind-body connection in the face of potentially terminal illness, it may be possible to extend life or even recover completely. And by using alternative mind-body techniques in addition to traditional medicine, we’ll be doing everything we can to help our body spring into action and do what it needs to do.
Can the Mind Slow Cancer Growth?
Cancer is defined as a group of more than 100 diseases in which abnormal cells divide uncontrollably and then invade other tissues. The term cancer is used to describe not a single disease, but many diseases in which cancer cells begin to grow and then spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymphatic system. One of the main characteristics of cancer cells is that they’re immortal, at least compared to normal cells. The genetic material (DNA) of a cell becomes damaged or changed as a result of chemicals, X-rays, UV rays, or other factors and produces mutations that affect normal cell growth. When this happens, cells don’t die when they should and new cells form when the body doesn’t need them. The extra cells form a mass of tissue called a tumor.
Treatments for various cancers include chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, or newer procedures like gene therapy and angiogenesis inhibitors. During the past few decades, studies have found that the effectiveness of any of these therapies is enhanced when patients include stress management and other techniques like visualization as part of their overall recovery routine. This is because hormones released during stress reactions not only help cancer cells travel through the bloodstream and spread to other tissues but they help keep those cancerous cells alive and growing by supplying them with vital nutrients. Adding stress management to the mix of cancer treatments may help stimulate the immune system and significantly improve the healing process.
With some exceptions, like breast and colon cancer, few cancers are inherited. Some are the result of defective genes or the environment. The majority, however, are the result of toxins, additives, diets high in saturated fat, industrial and household chemicals, radiation exposure, alcohol, and tobacco. Unfortunately, since the EPA does not test for combinations of chemicals, we really don’t know what the effect of exposure to two or more chemicals is on cancer risk compared to single chemical exposure. Research done over the last decade has shown that many people might avoid cancer or would cut their risk significantly if they adhered to seven rules:
1. Don’t use tobacco products, including chewing tobacco.
2. Limit sun exposure, especially if you’re light-skinned.
3. Avoid food additives and environmental chemicals.
4. Maintain a low-saturated-fat, high-fiber diet.
5. Limit alcohol consumption.
6. Limit sugar intake.
7. Watch your weight.
The one significant risk factor left off the researchers’ list is how a person views life events and responds to stress. Human experiments have shown that stress affects key pathogenic processes in cancer such as antiviral defenses, DNA repair, and cellular aging. Conversely, study after study has proven that individuals able to cope with stress are less likely to get cancer. And results from clinical trials have shown that patients who use a variety of stress management techniques and mind-body medicine are much more likely to recover from cancer. Meditation and visualization exercises, for example, improve the general quality of life and can actually enhance the effects of conventional treatment. When chemotherapy or radiation damages white blood cells, along with the cancer cells, the immune system is weakened, which can lead to infection and other diseases. This added stress only fuels the problem and makes stress management and reinforcement of positive thinking even more important.
Beating cancer is never easy. Avoiding the seven risk factors that trigger most cancers is however. Simply following rules number one and five is a way to minimize risk for some of the worst types of cancer such as lung, esophageal, throat, liver, pancreatic, and upper digestive tract. New research has also found that obesity is linked to a dozen types of cancers, including colon, kidney, esophagus, and thyroid, among others. For cancer cells that spring up suddenly without a known cause, maintaining a healthy immune system is the best way to make sure that they are detected, attacked, and eliminated. If researchers have learned anything it’s that even a disease like cancer is much more easily overcome when we use the mind-body connection to help fight it. The techniques found throughout the rest of the book will help you do just that.
More than twenty years ago, an article published by the American Cancer Society asked the question, is there a cancer-prone personality? At the time, results were inconclusive and researchers needed much more information before they could put the debate to rest. Since then, studies have shown that there may indeed be a link between behavior and personality and the onset of and recovery from cancer. We know that emotions such as depression, anger, and hostility make us more prone to illness and disease; and it’s been shown that positive attitudes such as hope, optimism, and happiness strengthen our immune system and protect us from disease. Recent studies point to two personality types that seem to make us either cancer-prone or cancer-resistant.7
CANCER-PRONE PERSONALITY TYPES
• Represses both positive and negative emotions.
• Shows anger, resentment, or hostility toward others.
• Takes on extra duties and responsibilities, even when they cause stress.
• Reacts adversely to and does not cope well with life changes.
• Is negative or pessimistic.
• Becomes easily depressed or has feelings of hopelessness.
• Has few friends or social networks.
• Worries often and excessively about others.
• Feels the need for approval and to please others.
CANCER-RESISTANT PERSONALITY TYPES
• Expresses emotions in a positive and constructive way.
• Controls anger and resolves anger issues positively.
• Knows when to say no.
• Copes well with stress and feels in control of situations.
• Is optimistic and hopeful.
• Does not become easily depressed.
• Seeks out and maintains social support networks.
• Does not worry excessively.
• Likes to please, but does not seek approval as an emotional crutch.
As with everything else, there are always exceptions: some of the most optimistic and positive among us will get cancer, and some of the angriest and most hostile will live to be 100, cancer-free. Importantly, when a cancer patient is told that his or her disease is terminal, those who adopt cancer-resistant traits tend to live longer because their newly acquired behaviors will automatically boost immunity.
Mind-body techniques such as meditation, autosuggestion, visualization, and relaxation exercises can have a positive effect on cancer treatment. A patient’s coping style and recovery strategy are critical factors in five-year survival rates. Mortality is typically reduced for those who have a social support network compared with those who are socially isolated. Patients who establish a recovery program that includes stress management and relaxation techniques have fewer relapses.
A group of researchers at Stanford University found that patients with metastatic breast cancer had a higher quality of life, less pain, and lived at least two years longer if they belonged to a support group, even if they were anxious and depressed about their disease. Their results showed that social support acts as a stress buffer. The patients with cortisol fluctuations had shorter survival times and poorer quality of life, while those who had good family ties and ongoing social support networks had lower cortisol levels and longer survival rates.8
There’s a lesson to be learned from all this mounting evidence. By strengthening and conditioning the mind part of the mind-body connection, we can extend life and optimize the chances of recovery.
How Stress Affects Cancer Treatment
A common complaint about cancer treatment is “The cure is worse than the disease.” Cancer treatments like surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation can be painful and debilitating, both physically and emotionally. The subsequent stress reactions lead to depressed immune function, which then lowers survival rates. A friend of mine who had a rare type of cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy once told me that his treatment was so bad that he felt like just giving up. To him, it seemed as if the treatment was making his disease even worse.
Because cancer treatment can be so stressful in itself and lead to depressed immunity, it’s important to keep active and maintain as healthy a lifestyle as possible. Good nutrition is an important part of cancer treatment. Eating the right kinds of foods before, during, and after treatment will go a long way in helping you tolerate the treatment and eventual recovery. According to the American Cancer Society, you need to consume enough nutrients to meet the following goals:
1. Prevent or reverse nutritional deficiencies;
2. Decrease the side effects of the cancer or the treatment; and
3. Maximize the quality of life.
While a healthy diet is always important, it’s especially important for people with cancer because it will provide the reserves and strengthen the immune defenses needed to cope with the effects of treatment.
Patients suffering from the physical side effects of chemotherapy and the emotional stress of having cancer will invariably have even lowered immune responses. That’s because any kind of stress causes release of cortisol, which blocks the production of natural killer (NK) cells that attack cancer. While recovering from cancer treatment, the last thing a person may want to think about is exercise. But studies have shown that exercise is one of the key factors in improving the quality of life in cancer patients. One study published in 1997 showed that 70 percent of cancer patients experience fatigue during therapy or after surgery and 30 percent of cancer survivors report a loss of energy following treatment, both significant contributors to a decreased quality of life in cancer patients. A subsequent study done in 1998 showed that patients who participated in outpatient wellness programs consisting of aerobic exercise, strength training, flexibility, and relaxation had a 43 percent increase in strength and a 50 percent increase in endurance than those who did not participate.9
Both studies linked the benefits of physical activity to a decrease in emotional stress. Many studies since then have corroborated those findings and further concluded that stress management strategies during and after treatment play a vital role in a patient’s overall success rate.
From the moment we’re born we begin to die. Sounds depressing, but the fact is that we begin the aging process at birth and become more susceptible to disease at middle age and especially as we reach sixty years old and beyond. Many diseases normally kept in check by a young, healthy immune system are more likely to overcome a body that can no longer keep up. Chronic diseases disproportionately affect older adults and are associated with disability and diminished quality of life. According to the 2007 US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Report, CDC’s Disaster Planning Goal: Protect Vulnerable Older Adults, 80 percent of adults over sixty have at least one chronic condition, and 50 percent have at least two.
Some researchers have found that an accumulation of stress over time and age increases the body’s production of free radicals. Free radicals are molecules in the body containing unpaired electrons. Damage occurs when the free radical encounters another molecule and seeks to find another electron to pair with its unpaired electron. The free radical often pulls an electron off a neighboring molecule, causing the affected molecule to become a free radical itself. The new free radical can then pull an electron off the next molecule, and a chemical chain reaction of radical production occurs. This process causes damage to cells that contain free radicals. Other research indicates that when older people experience stress they have a lowered lymphocyte count and a decrease in the hormone thymosin, both factors in impaired immune function.
As we age, our homeostatic mechanisms don’t work as well as they once did. We don’t absorb calcium as well, our digestive and excretory systems are not as efficient, our immune systems are weakened, and our hearts are not as strong. We become less tolerant of stress, both physically and emotionally, which is the reason we don’t adjust as well to changes in temperature or blood pressure. We typically recover more slowly from infections, but even more so when we’re stressed. According to researchers, HIV-infected patients older than fifty have levels of depression five times higher than the general population, which further increases the risk of other diseases.10 Not surprisingly, as indicated in Figure 2.5, people are diagnosed with cancer at higher rates as they age.
Figure 2.5: Increase in Cancer Rates as Men and Women Age.
Stress hormones may also contribute to formation of amyloid plaques in the brain and progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers at the University of California–Irvine found that when animals were injected with stress hormones, the levels of beta-amyloid production in the brain increased by 60 percent. They also found an increase in the production of another protein called tau, which leads to the formation of tangles, the other signature effect of Alzheimer’s. After just one week of experiments, the scientists saw plaque formation in young brains equivalent to brains that were twice as old. According to Frank LaFerla, PhD, professor of neurobiology and behavior and director of the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders at the University of California–Irvine, managing stress and reducing certain medications that contain glucocorticoids could significantly slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s.
Scientists are getting close to discovering the genetic link to aging, which causes cell structure and function to deteriorate. Studies suggest that we are programmed to self-destruct, but that we can postpone that destruction through diet, exercise, and reducing stress. The process of aging itself can trigger various diseases. When a person thinks of aging as a stressful life event, the consequent emotional upheaval will invariably contribute to stress-related illnesses. The more stressful the aging process is perceived to be, the greater the probability that the stress will trigger disease. As a result, it’s not unusual to experience some sort of mental health problem as one gets older. Depression is common among the elderly, suicide is higher than it is in any other age group, and phobias and other mental disorders are also high due to four factors:
1. Because the immune system gradually loses its capacity to fight disease, the elderly are more prone to infections and become chronically sick. This leads to preoccupation with mortality and the onset of emotional disorders. Depression and suicide increase when physical and mental activities decrease.
2. Sensory and motor functions decline, which frustrate most older individuals. They are less likely to initiate a daily exercise program or to maintain healthful lifestyles because they feel as if nothing they do will help.
3. Continued stress reactions lead to negative conditioning. This habitual reinforcement strengthens the stress response and causes even more illness and disease.
4. The elderly typically have decreased social interactions. This is especially true after a spouse dies, following an illness, or when children move away. Rather than getting involved in activities that enhance their social support, they become isolated and depressed.
Despite the fact that we succumb to more diseases as we age, life expectancy has been rising steadily. Worldwide, the average lifespan is expected to extend another ten years by 2050. In the United States, the numbers of adults over the age of sixty-five will more than double by 2030, as will the number of adults over the age of eighty. The reasons are improved nutrition, more activity, decreased rates of smoking, and better health practices such as stress management that keep our immune systems working better and longer.
No matter what we might wish, no one has as yet discovered the elusive Fountain of Youth, and we are nowhere near a breakthrough that will reverse aging or stop the programmed end of life. What we can do is make sure that life ends naturally and not with a disease that could have been avoided. In the chapters ahead, I’ll discuss ways in which we can condition the brain to help us slow the aging process and maximize life span. I’ll also discuss proven methods for boosting the immune system and fighting disease throughout life, no matter how old we are.
